The word panorama originates from the Greek words "pan" meaning all and "horama" meaning view or sight. The modern day version has several meanings: (1) an unobstructed and wide view of an extensive area; (2) an extended pictorial representation; (3) a continuously passing or changing scene or unfolding of events and; (4) a comprehensive survey, as of a subject.
The traditional panorama camera rotates the mechanism about the rear nodal point of the lens while the film is moved past an optical slit at a speed corresponding to the rotation (ex. Cirkut camera), or alternatively, the lens and slit may turn together, wiping an image on to a stationary strip of film curved about the common center of rotation (ex. Widelux).
The 360.degree. rotating camera records an image that produces a "curvilinear" perspective along the horizontal axis. Curved surfaces that run parallel to the camera's circular path of motion, appear flat in the photograph and flat surfaces, parallel to the diameter of the circle of rotation, appear convex.
A "peripheral" camera is similar to the panorama camera but differs in that the camera remains stationary and the object of the photograph is rotated, relative to the film's motion. Once again, an optical slit is used to record the image onto the film.
The peripheral camera technique is useful for photographing cylindrical objects because it produces a "rolled out" image of the surface of the object. A periphotograph of a noncylindrical object will produce a discontiguous image similar to world maps printed on flat sheets of paper.
The peripheral and rotating cameras are limited in their photographic exploration of the panorama image by the structural limitation that allows only a rotational movement.
The adult human brain perceives space not in a curvilinear perspective of the 360 .degree. panorama camera or in the rolled out effect of the peripheral camera but rather in a linear perspective wherein lines converge as they extend into the horizon. Objects appear large in the foreground and shrink in appearance as their position is moved into the distance.
Contrasting with the distortions created in a linear, curvilinear, and rolled out perspectives, a "fixed" perspective produces an undistorted view where an object remains static in size. When an image is fixed in one direction, the objects located along that axis remain fixed in size no matter where their location is in relation to the camera. For example, in an image with a horizontally fixed perspective, an object measuring one inch horizontally and located at a distance of five feet from the camera, will also measure one inch horizontally even when positioned ten or twenty feet away. The fixed perspective has interesting applications in the fields of education, surveying, restoration, and geography, among others.
Therefore, a need has arisen for a camera capable of recording an image in a fixed perspective.